This household is just buzzing with excitement. Oddly enough, this is the year that Punksin will be getting the least, given that our financial ability to blow out the holiday has gone down, which is good timing given that our awareness that we don’t need to give her everything under the sun has gone up. (I should really say MY awareness – I think The Tech Guru always knew this…) But the Santa thing is out of control, and it is so exciting for Punksin that I’ve gotten swept up in it too, remembering how I used to practically quiver with anticipation, hoping to hear sleigh bells as I fell asleep.

Last Saturday we took Punksin to see Santa at ABC Home, where they served us chocolate chip cookies and brownies at 10:00 in the morning. We made the grave mistake of not eating breakfast before going, resulting in The Tech Guru getting a nice stomachache while Punksin bounced off the walls from the sugar high. It was insane, and the way they went about the whole thing was a little too precious for me – doling out one minuscule cookie per person with dainty silver tongs. They did come back around and offer more, but it just seemed that it was orchestrated to be done this way so that again, they could showcase how precious the cookies were. They would have saved themselves a lot of trouble if they had just given people 3 or 4 at a time.

Anyhow, Punksin saw Santa and was quite delighted. He also made an appearance at her school this past Friday, and as we’ve gotten closer and closer to the BIG DAY, she’s been practically splitting with excitement.

Tonight, we discovered that Google Earth has a Santa Tracker!! (As I write this, Santa is apparently in Brazil, lucky fucker…) I have to tell you, this thing is cool. The graphics are definitely still rudimentary but they work for my Punksin and when she’s excited, I’m excited – while we were eating dinner, Santa was wending his way through Scotland and Ireland. I explained to her where those were and that Santa would need to cross the Atlantic (which he did by way of Iceland), which really didn’t matter one whit to her, all she knew was that he was on the way, almost here, practically around the corner! And she had to go to bed pronto.

By 7:45 she was fast asleep, which has to be the earliest in a long time. She went potty in record time, changed into pajamas at the speed of light, brushed teeth and even said she did not want me to read to her. You have no idea how big that is. This girl loves getting read to at night – if we have to bypass the reading because it’s too late, real tears ensue. It’s a habit I will continue for as long as she will let me; it was something my mother and I shared when we lived alone, up until I was about 6 or 7, and the comfort of being read to at night made our little one-room apartments seem less dismal, more homey and safe. Although conditions are less rustic now, Punksin has embraced this ritual with no less enthusiasm than I felt at her age – but tonight, at least, the ritual had to be put aside.

After all, Santa was coming.

I can’t wait to see her face in the morning. She wanted Santa to bring her a telescope, for God’s sake, which I feverishly searched for (thank God for the internet, can you imagine me lugging Pudding to and fro trying to find this in the real world? ) I found some cheapish thing – it must be cheap, it comes with a microscope too and altogether cost only $35, so how good can it really be? But for a 3-year old, it should be fine. The important thing was for her not to be disappointed by Santa. It’ll be all too soon before she learns the truth about him: